Reaction 8

Read the excerpt from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The U.S. did not immediately ratify the Declaration. What policies and practices within the U.S. conflicted with many of the principles of the Declaration? (10 pts)

In 1948, the United Nations General Assembly approved the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, drafted by a committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt. The goals of the declarations were generally to provide  rights that could be enjoyed by all members of the human family. Some of these rights included freedom of speech, religious toleration, and protection against arbitrary government, along with social and economic entitlements such as the right to an adequate standard of living and access to housing, education, and medical care. So basically, it's main priority was to ensure that a nation's treatment of its own citizens should be subject to outside evaluation.

Although this Declaration of Human rights would seem acceptable in today's society, it caused so much debate and turmoil in the late 1940s that its first covenant wasn't ratified by Congress until 1992. To add to that, the second covenant has still not been passed!

The reasons as to why the Declaration of Rights could not be passed until 1992 was because the United States had to go under massive changes before it could adopt such a new way of life. Most of the principles within the Declaration contradicted policies and practices of the time period within the United States. Segregation played a large role in society after WWII.  It was a way of life, a lifestyle, for both white and black people, as well as other minority groups.  Even women had a difficult time after WWII, as they were expected to go back to being fragile housewives under the control of their superior husbands. The thought of assimilating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into their society would be nearly impossible to adjust to. Almost every article of the Declaration contradicted society in the late 1940s.

Article I, for example, states "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."  Now apply this rule to a white man and a colored man. Of course, the statement would apply to the white man, but ask the white man if the rule includes a colored man in its bank of all who deserve rights, and I can guarantee you the white man would deny this liberty to him. I am trying to support the idea that the white man in the time period after WWII still feels he is superior to, and therefore, far more deserving of life and liberties than any man other than his same skin color. At this time, the idea of "brotherhood" between all men (including minorities) was not acceptable.

Staying on the subject of minorities and how discrimination towards them explains the long awaited ratification of the Declaration, many other articles may be examined.  In fact, Articles 1-19 all directly affect how people of color are treated in society. Article 2 explains how "Everyone" is included in the Declaration, no matter their "race, colour, sex, language..." This Article is aimed toward the white supremacists who always try to find a way to exclude minorities from their rights in Declarations and other documents of the law. Article 4, I'd say, is especially for African Americans who were forced into servitude before. A major hypocritical move on behalf of the US government in regards to this Declaration were the Japanese internment camps of WWII. Had the Universal Declaration of Human Rights been in order then, the US would have been in violation of Articles 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12! To remove an entire ethnic race of people into camps on suspicion of them having something to do with the bombing at Pearl Harbor and other terrorist activities is unlawful. Because of this circumstance, Articles 5-12 apply directly towards minorities because it is clear that they received the harshest punishments before, during and after WWII. In a criminal case, they were the first suspects, and tended to be convicted without proper evidence of their being guilty.  The Declaration would also have been beneficial to the Latin Americans of the late 1940s into the 1950s. Discrimination against Zoot-suiters and workers in the Bracero Program were treated unfairly and add more support in how hypocritical it would have been to ratify the Declaration in 1948.

Women, too were discriminated against in society in the late 1940s after the war. During the war, women took over many of the jobs that once belonged to the men that were at war. They gained a great deal of independence while their counterparts were away. However, as the war ended, so did the independence of the women along with their war-time jobs. Many went back to jobs that paid less then men's jobs, and had no unemployment insurance when they were laid off. For this reason, Articles 23-29 may directly apply to women.  Article 23 especially would have aided women in keeping some sense of accomplishment. However, this wouldn't follow through anytime soon because of male superiority over the woman and the need to save money for the companies that let the women workers go. 

My overall theory about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is that it all comes down to how much a nation is willing to sacrifice in order to have a moral community. It would take a nation a great deal of time (decades), and money to renovate a reputation which was once completely hypocritical. This is why it took so long for the United States Congress to ratify the Declaration of Human Rights. They wanted to confirm that the country had gone through enough civil, political, economic, social and cultural change before it could confirm these rights in a Declaration.